ISO help making chicken chow mein

[Desdamona]

Chicken does not have it's own group. I want to try making Chicken chow mein. Some recipies call for Soy sauce and I have also seen oyster sauce.


I also have Black bean sauce and Hoisin sauce.
Also there is light and dark soy sauce.

Any sugestions on any of these and the proportions that would work.


TIA


Desdamona. (First post)

 

[Andy M.]

Welcome to DC.

Try this recipe for the sauce:

2 Tb Oyster Sauce
1 Tb Soy Sauce
½Tb Dry Sherry
½ tsp Sugar
2 tsp Cornstarch
¼ C Chicken or Vegetable Stock

 

[GotGarlic]

Sounds good to me, Andy! I love oyster sauce [emoji7]

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Chow Mein simply means Cop Suey with crispy noodles. Low Mein means with soft noddles.

Chp Suey was created ub the U.S. byChinese imigrants, and was a way to use up veggies, with meat added to season the dish. The protien can be pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, or basically any meat, including any seafood that you feel hungry for. The best Chiucken Chow Mein I've had was very simple, ant a little Chinese Restaurant in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario. It consisted of strips of onion, minced garlic, snow peas, Celery, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and bean sprouts.

The Sauce was simply made by deglazing the wok after stir-frying all of the veggies, with Mirin, MSG, a little sugar, ginger, and thickened with a cornstarch slurry. If you don't want to use NSG, add a tbs. of fish sauce for that added umami flavor. Mushrooms are also good in Chow Mein.

Other additions to your sauce may include light soy sauce (real brewed soy sauce, not hydrolyzed wheat soy sauce) maybe a bit of oyster, or Hoisin Sauce, a dash of Chinese 5-spice pwder, and a little toasted Sesame Oil.

I cook my chicken separately as I velvet the meat. I'll explain the process in the recipe.

Here is a recipe that works well for me:

ingredients:

2 medium carrots, peeled and bias sliced​

2 stalks celery, washed and bias sliced​

1 sweet, white onion, cut into leafs (cut off top and bottom, then cut from top to bottom in 1/4 inch strips)​

1 can sliced water Chestnuts, drained​

1 can Bamboo Shoots, drained​

1/2 cup frozen, baby peas, or 1 cup snow peas​

2 cups Mung Bean Sprouts​

1 cup Chicken Broth​

2 tbs. Hoisin Sauce​

2 tbs. Soy Sauce​

4 cloves fresh garlic, minced​

2 tsp. fresh, minced ginger​

2 tbs.Corn, or other high temp cooking oil​

.

Add oil to wok over high heat. Shen the oil starts to smoke, add the veggies, with the carrots first, followed by the onion, then water chestnuts, clelery an bamboo shoots. Add the rem Stir-fry for 4 minutes, or until carrots and onions just start to soften. add seasonings. Reduce heat to medium.

Remove veggies to a large mixing bowl. De-glaze the pan/wok with the chicken broth, Mirin, Hoisin Sauce, and soy sauce. thicken to a thin gravy consistency with a cornstarch slutty. Turn off heat and put the veggies back into the wok. Fold in velveted meat. Top with Chow Mein noodles on plates.

For velveting the meat:

Ingredients:
1/2 lb Chicken Brest
3 tbs. lite soy sauce
2 tbs. rice vinegar
3 tbs. brown sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tsp. cornstarch
pot of hot, not boiling, water, or 2 inches of cooking oil in heavy pan

Slice the chicken with the grain into thin strips. Mix all marinade ingredients together. Put chicken strips in marinade for 15 minutes, stirring to coat all of the chicken.

Heat oil to 310' F., or water to 190' F. place chicken strips, a couple at a time, into hot liquid. Watch the meat. When the coating turns opaque, remove to a paper towel line bowl to drain.

Of course, this recipe was just made to alter. Be creative.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[dragnlaw]

Welcome to DC!

Andy's list sounds great to me.

I often switch from Sherry to Sake in a lot of my sauces. I find the Sake can be very smooth.

You can do my favourite method. Line up all your recipes and chart which ones use the different ingredients. Use the ingredients that are in all of them and then go thru and pick out the ones you think would like. Taste those liquid ingredients to help you decide, remembering of course, that they will be toned down with the rest of the sauce. You can do this indefinitely with many many combinations.

Start with Andy's - and then next time use a slightly different ingredient.

Chief actually is using 2 sauces but then putting them all together. It works both ways.

 

[larry_stewart]

Just to throw a twist in here to complicate things more, Every chow mien dish ive had in my area was usually a clear/ white sauce . Being a vegetarian and only having vegetable chow mien may be the reason, but anyway, I figured Id just throw it out there.
My sauce is basically a chicken broth ( vegetarian version) thickened with a Corn starch slurry and some sesame oil added in at the end. Veggies I often see and include in my own would be Nappa cabbage, Onions, carrots, celery , Snow peas, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, peppers , mushrooms, baby corn and bean sprouts ( if the fresh ones are readily available).

Ill start with the peppers, onions and celery stir fry / sweat a bit with salt, just to soften slightly ( Dont want anything to brown) then basically add everything else except the snow peas and sprouts ( I like them with a little crunch so I toss them in at the end). Add the broth, once up to a boil , I add the corn starch slurry , mix til uniform, add some sesame oil, mix it in, toss in the sprouts and snow peas, mix and serve with jasmine rice, and if on hand , the chow mein noodles.

Years ago, I worked somewhere near a Chinese take out place and I got veggie chow mein every day. They had an open kitchen, so for a year I watched religiously what they were doing. Cant say this was exact, but it was damn close.